EnvisaLink showing "busy" during AC failures

[Goofy4TheWorld]

I think I just stumbled onto something of a bug in the EnvisaLink hardware that is connected to my DSC 1864 panel and wanted to see if anyone can confirm that what I am seeing is “as expected”. I have recreated the issue in both EVL3 and EVL4 hardware.

Long story short is it appears that if you have DSC 4th System Option [016] option 6 toggled to ON (Power Save Mode Enabled) then when the AC power goes out the EnvisaLink will show as “BUSY” and thus not allow remote arming, disarming, etc.…

Option [016] #6 is where a DSC panel will turn off all backlights on keypads after 30 seconds of inactivity during any AC failure. Knowing the EnvisaLink enrolls on a DSC as a PC5400 printer, I can only assume that maybe in addition to the Power Save option turning off keypad lights maybe it turns off communication with “PC5400s” too?

I have long had DSC and EnvisaLink at my home and my business, but both of those locations have automatic standby generators and so while I have always turned on the Power Save option it never got used since my alarms never saw more than 30 seconds of AC utility loss.

But I just recently installed a new system at a remote lake house and when the power went out there yesterday I noticed that the system showed “BUSY” the entire duration of the power outage, even though the status page confirmed that it was still connected via IP and it was correctly reporting the AC failure and the AC restoral.

I looked high and low for a post here and elsewhere, but I can’t find anyone else that has posted the same issue. Perhaps it is because [016] #6 is OFF by default and few users ever change this default. It is handy to have the keypad blanking at the remote house, but if I must turn it off to keep the EnvisaLink available I will.

Thanks for any feedback!

[GrandWizard]

Hi, this has been covered many times over the years. The Envisalink cannot function with Keypad Blanking enabled.

As well, this wouldn't save your battery as most of the current is in the backlight, not in the LCD screen.